In the history of the Soviet Union, there were at least three attempts to rename the capital. Stalin rejected two of them. And even after the death of the leader of all nations, the name of the deceased continued to work for him, since it was precisely the memory of the Generalissimo's personality that did not allow Moscow to be given a different name.
Ilyich died. Let the capital be it
For the first time, the idea of renaming Moscow was announced three years after the death of V. I. Lenin, in February 1927. The initiative to name the capital Ilyich came from over 200 Soviet officials, apparatchiks, who sent a corresponding petition to the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, MI Kalinin. In substantiating their arguments about the renaming, they wrote that "it was Lenin who founded free Russia."
At that time, the Soviet authorities already had the experience of renaming large cities. Take at least the northern capital - Petrograd became Leningrad 5 days after the death of the "founder of free Russia".
But in 1927, it was considered that two hails of Lenin in the Soviet Union was too much, and the appeal of the administrative workers was shelved. The general secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) JV Stalin already had power that was not limited by anything and no one, and in all matters, including the renaming of cities, his word was decisive.
Stalinodar the leader did not accept as a gift
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The topic of renaming Moscow - this time to Stalinodar - surfaced 11 years later, with the initiative to assign the capital the name of Stalin was made by the People's Commissar of the NKVD of the USSR N. I. Yezhov. Nikolai Ivanovich referred to the "opinion of the working people." By 1938, under the people's commissar, an armchair swayed, Stalin intended to remove the "bloody dwarf" soon, and Yezhov, obviously, used any means for self-preservation. In any case, a number of Russian historians interpret the act of the People's Commissar of the NKVD, who worked in a field that is far from toponymy, in this way.
Yezhov's subordinates prepared a special draft of the idea of renaming Moscow into Stalinodar. The document was sent to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. To the note, the People's Commissar of the NKVD attached the same addresses of the workers, one even in verse. Party veteran EF Chumakova wrote in her verses about the happiness that “Stalin gave us as a gift. Such boundless joy rhymed with the only correct name of the capital - the word "Stalinodar".
All-Union Headman M. I. Kalinin briefly informed the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet that Stalin strongly objected to the renaming of Moscow. Yezhov's attempt to flatter the Boss failed - the People's Commissar was removed the same year, then arrested and executed in 1940.
Last attempts
They say that there were two more attempts to rename Moscow, also associated with the name of Stalin - after the end of the Great Patriotic War, in which the masses associated the victory with the genius of the "great commander" and generalissimo, and after the death of Joseph Vissarionovich.
After the Victory, Stalin again rejected the idea of naming the capital by his own name. Apparently, this project was not even formalized at that time in the form of an official document. In any case, it is not known from whom this proposal came and in what form it came to Stalin.
The intention to name Moscow Stalin after the death of the leader was caused by the inertia of feelings after the loss of the "great Father and Teacher", which in the first time after the death of Joseph Vissarionovich was very strong among the people and among the bureaucratic apparatus. Loyalist sentiments embraced entire organizations, institutions and enterprises, which were famous in Moscow for numerous appeals to perpetuate Stalin's name. At first, even projects to rename the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics into the Union of Soviet Stalinist Republics were seriously considered, and they wanted to call the Georgian USSR Stalinist.
But the political environment soon changed. The time was coming for the debunking of the Stalin personality cult. The mood to exalt the leader was replaced by a new ideological setting - a reverse process began throughout the country: the names of cities, streets, squares, institutions, organizations and enterprises were taken away, in one way or another connected with the generalissimo, the monuments installed to him were everywhere demolished. And the XX Party Congress, which took place three years after the death of I. V. Stalin, at which Khrushchev made his devastating speech, accelerated the de-Stalinization of the new party ideology.
